Joana Vasconcelos makes sculptures out of things most people would not look at twice: saucepans, plastic cutlery, crochet, artificial flowers. Valentino Garavani spent half a century making clothes that everyone looked at. VENUS, at MAAT until 22 February 2027, puts the two side by side. Vasconcelos has designed a route through the museum’s two main galleries in which more than 30 of Valentino’s haute couture and ready-to-wear pieces stand among her own installations.
The exhibition began in Rome, at PM23, the cultural space founded by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, where it opened in January 2026. It was organised by their foundation with the fashion house, and Lisbon sees a version adapted to MAAT’s galleries. The link between the two is craft. Both rework old techniques, embroidery, lace, crochet, filigree, into something that looks new, and both work at a scale that makes you step back before you step closer.
Valkyrie Venus
The show takes its name from its centrepiece. Vasconcelos’ Valkyries are vast suspended sculptures of fabric, knitting and embroidery that hang from the ceiling like soft chandeliers. Valkyrie Venus, made in 2025, is the one built for this project, and the Valentino dresses are arranged around it. A new framed piece from her Crochet Paintings series, also called Venus, takes a Josef Hoffmann motif that Valentino used in his autumn/winter 1989–90 haute couture collection and works it in crochet. A second new work, Sacro Cuore, is a textile sculpture suspended in the gallery.
From saucepans to filigree
Some of Vasconcelos’ best-known works come with her. Marilyn is a pair of high-heeled shoes taller than a person, made from stainless steel saucepans and their lids. Independent Heart #3 takes the heart of Viana, the gold filigree jewel of northern Portugal, and rebuilds it in plastic cutlery. Garden of Eden is a labyrinth of artificial flowers that you walk through. Next to Valentino’s gowns, the domestic materials stop looking like a joke. The question the show asks is the one both of them have always asked: where decoration ends and art begins.
MAAT at ten
VENUS is part of MAAT’s tenth-anniversary programme. The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology opened in October 2016 on the riverfront at Belém, in a low, curved building by Amanda Levete’s studio AL_A, clad in white three-dimensional ceramic tiles. Its roof is a public walkway with views up and down the Tagus to the 25 de Abril bridge, and it is worth going up before or after the exhibition. Next door, the red-brick Central Tejo power station is part of the same museum.
Plan your visit
VENUS runs until 22 February 2027 in Galleries 1 and 2. MAAT is open from 10:00 to 19:00 every day except Tuesday. It closes at 15:00 on 24 and 31 December and all day on 25 December and 1 January. Tickets are sold on the MAAT website. The museum is on the riverfront between Cais do Sodré and Belém, a short walk from Belém station on the Cascais train line.
